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Wednesday, July 17, 2013

Kickstarters Not To Miss: July 2013

Hello there! You guys know how we love Kickstarter, right? Well, we've have the opportunity to try out a couple games on Kickstarter right now. Ready for some recommendations? Let's kick it off!

Fire and Flora

The Growing Up Gamers crew love games that teach something. 'Educational Games' have been around for a while, in one form or another. In my experience, though, most that fall into this category only educate or entertain, but not both. Tim Handley's Fire and Flora did both for us: it delivered interesting play, and we learned a bit about fire ecology. Nifty, huh?

Overall, the game is pretty simple: you try to acquire lands and plant native species, and earn victory points for doing so. Land is purchased with coins, and often has a plant species on it. Native species give you victory points, and invasive species fill your lands, invade and drive out native species. You can grow, propogate or kill species with the four resources: Fire, Water, Time and Labor. Each species has a personality that defines how they react to each resource. You may also play resources on your opponents' plants. There are also event cards, and most of these are wildfires.

The brilliance of the game is that it shows the effects of fires and invasive species on the environment. The designer is a [wildlife biologist?], though, and notes that some species actually propogate due to fire. This, coupled with beatiful pictures of plants make this a great teaching tool for discussing plant invasion and wildfire, as well as an interactive building game that is fun and combines simple strategy with risk management.

IncrediBrawl

Much like the title implies, IncrediBrawl is a fighting game. The designers sent us a copy to try out, and we enjoyed it. Our daughter in particular liked it. Each player has a deck of characters, and each character has an attack type (Physical, Energy or Primal) and a level. Each player secretly chooses a character, and then reveals simultaneously. Attack types overcome in a rock-paper-scissors fashion (Energy beats Physical, Physical beats Primal, Primal beats Energy), and if the attack type is the same, there is a level and the highest wins. That's the basic resolution system, and that is enhanced by powerup cards, and the characters themselves each have a special ability.

Multiplayer games have the players do two-person matches, with winners facing off. The winner is the first person to get 10 glory, which are the victory points of the game. We noticed that glory tokens exchanged hands a lot, based on character powers. Overall, a fun and light game.

Warmachine: Tactics

Warmachine: Tactics is a game we have anticipated for a while. Since Privateer Press announced teaming up with WhiteMoon Dreams a while back, I've been frothing at the mouth for this. Warmachine: Tactics is a PC/Mac version of the Warmachine tabletop miniatures game that supports both single player campaign modes and multiplayer online matches. Since the project launched on July 10th, it steamrolled through its initial goal and has been unlocking stretch goals like mad. We interviewed Matt Wilson of Privateer Press shortly before the project launched (you can read that here).

If you like turn-based strategy, take a look. This should be amazing. Also note that there are some great-looking miniatures playable in the tabletop game as backer rewards. We have high hopes for this game, and we are watching the project closely.

Daft Dice

After getting a comment below, I had to check this campaign out. I don't normally add things after-the-fact, but I just loved the Daft Dice campaign. The custom dice are really nice: laser-cut wooden dice with great designs. But what are really amazing are all the accessories. Take a look at the beautiful dice towers!

I can't even tell you how much I want a set of these business cards. Wow. Well played, Daft Concepts. Well played.

Did we miss any?

Any projects you feel should have been included, or comments about the ones featured? Let us know in the comments!